Israel has never been more isolated. Its best friend, the United States, had vetoed 41 Security Council resolutions condemning Israel in the past three decades, but was about to vote for the Jan. 8 resolution denouncing the attack on Gaza when President Bush intervened, at the behest of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Still, in the face of unprecedented global criticism, the U.S. didn't dare veto, but merely abstained. Europe, never Israel's close ally, erupted in near unanimous outrage over Gaza, with fits of anti-Semitic violence in France, Sweden and Belgium.

Israel is accustomed to attacks from the left and the U.N. This time, though, Amnesty International has accused Israel of war crimes (using white phosphorus against civilians), and the secretary-general was unusually outspoken. After Israel bombed five U.N. compounds, Ban Ki-moon called the attack "heartbreaking â€¦ outrageous and unacceptable." His condemnation of Hamas rocket attacks came later, in milder terms.

Israel's last major military excursion, into Lebanon in 2006, aroused less anger. Its closest European ally is Britain, where Tony Blair initially refused to call for a ceasefire in Lebanon. By day two in Gaza, his Labour successors were pushing for a ceasefire; one M.P. called Israel's leaders "mass murderers." The global outcry in 2006 was tempered by disgust at Hizbullah's rocket campaign, which killed 43 in heavily populated northern Israel. This time, Hamas rockets hit a patch of sparsely populated southern Israel, killing three, while the Israeli response has been far more deadly. Some 1,300 Palestinians have been killedâ€”compared with 500 Shiites in Lebanon.

The one region where Israel is arguably not more isolated is the Middle East. Israel's push for Arab recognition suffered a setback when Mauritania and Qatar severed relations, but four Arab summits have reached no consensus on how to respond to Gaza. Major states, led by Jordan and Egypt, want to lend no comfort to their Persian rival, Iran, the backer of Hamas. Moreover, Hamas has not emerged as a plucky hero to the Arab world, the way Hizbullah did in 2006. When the fighting quieted last week, Hamas held a "victory" parade in Gaza City, and it fizzled.

Israel has just one key friend. Could Obama, who promised the Muslim world "a new way forward" in his Inaugural Address, loosen the bond? A recent Pew poll shows 55 percent of U.S. Republicans, but only 45 percent of Democrats, approve of Israel's actions in Gaza. Given that Democrats now rule, Israel may need to worry more about the mood on Main Street than on the Arab Street.

ygmir wrote:being more of an anarchist, (in the sense of very, very limited gov.........not burning stuff down), I am intrigued with how each side, winners and losers, support their arguments, defend their candidate, and, attack eachothers information...........

ygmir wrote:being more of an anarchist, (in the sense of very, very limited gov.........not burning stuff down), I am intrigued with how each side, winners and losers, support their arguments, defend their candidate, and, attack eachothers information...........

nutty humans............hahahaha

Freedom thrives best in an atmosphere of anarchy.

I'm not so sure I'd agree with that.

JK

JKhttp://www.mudskippercafe.comWhen I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle.Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.

ygmir wrote:I find it interesting, depending on which side of the fence a person sits, how, they accept or reject a set of figures, and, why.......It seems, so often, very subjective.

I don't believe that you are as "fair and balanced" as you say that you are.

Mark Twain: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

UD:

I don't think I've claimed to be "fair and balanced (especially balanced)",

I have said I've checked out of both parties, and, enjoy poking fun at them........and, since, the predominance of folks here seem to be left, I tend to poke from the right........and, vice versa.........

I totally agree with Mark Twain.
And, realize most of what anyone sees at "truth", is, jaded by their own POV..........

I just love the dialog and repartee..........

I hearken to one of your old sig lines, I think it was yours........about not accepting anything, unless, it agrees with your own perceptions, and, ideas.......
I'm sure I just butchered it, but, that's what I took from it, and, I think it's brilliant.

(OH! I hope you (or I) don't get accused of having my (or your) dick up your (or my) ass or something--it would have to be you because I've blocked that bitch and can't see a thing she posts. Damn, I'm terrible, I just added this to piss her off!)

JK

JKhttp://www.mudskippercafe.comWhen I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle.Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.

ygmir wrote:being more of an anarchist, (in the sense of very, very limited gov.........not burning stuff down), I am intrigued with how each side, winners and losers, support their arguments, defend their candidate, and, attack eachothers information...........

nutty humans............hahahaha

Freedom thrives best in an atmosphere of anarchy.

I'm not so sure I'd agree with that.

JK

In a complete anarchy there are no rules and anyone can do whatever he wants including killing other people and taking all his stuff. Of course everyone else is free to do the same to you. Complete Freedom. Included in that freedom is the ability to make a pact with someone else to watch each others back. And as long as you watch out for each others interests property and rights and stand together in a fight you will be more able to do the things you want and bullies will be less able to take it away from you or hurt you. This is the simplest and most basic form of government. It is the basis on which the United States was formed. The several American (British) Colonies formed a union to protect themselves fro King George and his band of thugs. Laws were intentionally minimalistic allowing each state to govern itself.

I cannot find the quote for it and my library is in storage so I might get into trouble for this one. Thomas Jefferson was of the opinion that all laws enacted since the formation of the United States should be scrapped every 75 years.

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." â€“ Thomas Jefferson

"The government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them..." -- Mark Twain

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."--Thomas Jefferson

(OH! I hope you (or I) don't get accused of having my (or your) dick up your (or my) ass or something--it would have to be you because I've blocked that bitch and can't see a thing she posts. Damn, I'm terrible, I just added this to piss her off!)

(OH! I hope you (or I) don't get accused of having my (or your) dick up your (or my) ass or something--it would have to be you because I've blocked that bitch and can't see a thing she posts. Damn, I'm terrible, I just added this to piss her off!)

ygmir wrote:being more of an anarchist, (in the sense of very, very limited gov.........not burning stuff down), I am intrigued with how each side, winners and losers, support their arguments, defend their candidate, and, attack eachothers information...........

nutty humans............hahahaha

Freedom thrives best in an atmosphere of anarchy.

I'm not so sure I'd agree with that.

JK

In a complete anarchy there are no rules and anyone can do whatever he wants including killing other people and taking all his stuff. Of course everyone else is free to do the same to you. Complete Freedom. Included in that freedom is the ability to make a pact with someone else to watch each others back. And as long as you watch out for each others interests property and rights and stand together in a fight you will be more able to do the things you want and bullies will be less able to take it away from you or hurt you. This is the simplest and most basic form of government. It is the basis on which the United States was formed. The several American (British) Colonies formed a union to protect themselves fro King George and his band of thugs. Laws were intentionally minimalistic allowing each state to govern itself.

I cannot find the quote for it and my library is in storage so I might get into trouble for this one. Thomas Jefferson was of the opinion that all laws enacted since the formation of the United States should be scrapped every 75 years.

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." â€“ Thomas Jefferson

"The government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them..." -- Mark Twain

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."--Thomas Jefferson

see, BB, I wish I knew all this, was this articulate, and, was this smart, .........thanks. That is clear and concise.

Note: I purposefully said "more of an anarchist" not, " A complete anarchist", knowing the connotations.......

Box Burner wrote:I cannot find the quote for it and my library is in storage so I might get into trouble for this one. Thomas Jefferson was of the opinion that all laws enacted since the formation of the United States should be scrapped every 75 years.

I can just see it now--hundreds, if not thousands of little tribes running around warring with each other to protect what is there's. Then the most popular conquer others and before you know it you're back to government of one form or another again. Anarchy doesn't work. IMHO

Now to your quote, I dont care who said it, the above makes sense to me. Maybe not scrapped, but at least reviewed.

JK

JKhttp://www.mudskippercafe.comWhen I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle.Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.

Box Burner wrote:I cannot find the quote for it and my library is in storage so I might get into trouble for this one. Thomas Jefferson was of the opinion that all laws enacted since the formation of the United States should be scrapped every 75 years.

I can just see it now--hundreds, if not thousands of little tribes running around warring with each other to protect what is there's. Then the most popular conquer others and before you know it you're back to government of one form or another again. Anarchy doesn't work. IMHO

Now to your quote, I dont care who said it, the above makes sense to me. Maybe not scrapped, but at least reviewed.

JK

well, yeah, but, the other idea would be that, as enlightened beings (debatable, I know), we'd be many small tribes (states?), cooperating but doing our own thing........

Obama right on track making the change that the Bush admin did not want to do or did not know how to do on changing the factors involved in bringing America and the world to the economic fiasco we now are facing.

you might think that the obama admin is full of bullshit and that this is the beginning of a the worst, but the worst is what you have supported for the last 8 years. This is the change that we needed eight years ago but you voted for an idiot and a lie.

"This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China ?
A. Shut up.

Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the US economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:
If you spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China.
If you spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs.
If you purchase a computer it will go to India.
If you purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala (unless you buy organic).
If you buy a car it will go to Japan.
If you purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan.

And none of it will help the American economy.
We need to keep that money here in America. You can keep the money in America by spending it at yard sales, going to a baseball game, or spend it on prostitutes, beer and wine (domestic ONLY), or tattoos, since those are the only businesses still in the US.

I don't post things because I believe that they are the absolute truth. I post them because I believe that they should be considered.

The Israeli author warns that his country has made a tragic mistake: "This war is a crime against ourselves .. a crime against the State of Israel."

Editor's note: In this powerful essay, Uri Avnery writes that Israel's latest assault on Gaza has backfired spectacularly for the country's long-term interests. He writes, "Seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a bloodstained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for [Israel's] long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet."

Avnery also writes that the true purpose of Israel's invasion, "(apart from gaining seats in the coming elections) is to terminate the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the imagination of the planners, Hamas is an invader which has gained control of a foreign country. The reality is, of course, entirely different." Yet, he argues, "Even if the Israeli army were to succeed in killing every Hamas fighter to the last man, even then Hamas would win. The Hamas fighters would be seen as the paragons of the Arab nation, the heroes of the Palestinian people, models for emulation by every youngster in the Arab world. The West Bank would fall into the hands of Hamas like a ripe fruit, Fatah would drown in a sea of contempt, the Arab regimes would be threatened with collapse."

Nearly seventy ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called "the Red Army" held the millions of the town's inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.

Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.

This is the description that would now appear in the history books -- if the Germans had won the war.

Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as "hostages" and exploit the women and children as "human shields", they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured.

In this war, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. The disparity between the forces, between the Israeli army -- with its airplanes, gunships, drones, warships, artillery and tanks -- and the few thousand lightly armed Hamas fighters, is one to a thousand, perhaps one to a million. In the political arena the gap between them is even wider. But in the propaganda war, the gap is almost infinite.

Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government ("The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets") has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all.

Only when the horrible scenes from Gaza started to appear on Western TV screens, did world public opinion gradually begin to change.

True, Western and Israeli TV channels showed only a tiny fraction of the dreadful events that appear 24 hours every day on Aljazeera's Arabic channel, but one picture of a dead baby in the arms of its terrified father is more powerful than a thousand elegantly constructed sentences from the Israeli army spokesman. And that is what is decisive, in the end.

War -- every war -- is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one's country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor.

The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions.

An example of this process surrounds the most shocking atrocity of this war so far: the shelling of the UN Fakhura school in Jabaliya refugee camp.

Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army "revealed" that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.

Later the official liar claimed that "our soldiers were shot at from inside the school". Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees.

But the admission made hardly any difference anymore. By that time, the Israeli public was completely convinced that "they shot from inside the school", and TV announcers stated this as a simple fact.
So it went with the other atrocities. Every baby metamorphosed, in the act of dying, into a Hamas terrorist. Every bombed mosque instantly became a Hamas base, every apartment building an arms cache, every school a terror command post, every civilian government building a "symbol of Hamas rule". Thus the Israeli army retained its purity as the "most moral army in the world".

The truth is that the atrocities are a direct result of the war plan. This reflects the personality of Ehud Barak -- a man whose way of thinking and actions are clear evidence of what is called "moral insanity", a sociopathic disorder.

The real aim (apart from gaining seats in the coming elections) is to terminate the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the imagination of the planners, Hamas is an invader which has gained control of a foreign country. The reality is, of course, entirely different.

The Hamas movement won the majority of the votes in the eminently democratic elections that took place in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. It won because the Palestinians had come to the conclusion that Fatah's peaceful approach had gained precisely nothing from Israel -- neither a freeze of the settlements, nor release of the prisoners, nor any significant steps toward ending the occupation and creating the Palestinian state. Hamas is deeply rooted in the population -- not only as a resistance movement fighting the foreign occupier, like the Irgun and the Stern Group in the past -- but also as a political and religious body that provides social, educational and medical services.

From the point of view of the population, the Hamas fighters are not a foreign body, but the sons of every family in the Strip and the other Palestinian regions. They do not "hide behind the population", the population views them as their only defenders.

Therefore, the whole operation is based on erroneous assumptions. Turning life into living hell does not cause the population to rise up against Hamas, but on the contrary, it unites behind Hamas and reinforces its determination not to surrender. The population of Leningrad did not rise up against Stalin, any more than the Londoners rose up against Churchill.

He who gives the order for such a war with such methods in a densely populated area knows that it will cause dreadful slaughter of civilians. Apparently that did not touch him. Or he believed that "they will change their ways" and "it will sear their consciousness", so that in future they will not dare to resist Israel.
A top priority for the planners was the need to minimize casualties among the soldiers, knowing that the mood of a large part of the pro-war public would change if reports of such casualties came in. That is what happened in Lebanon Wars I and II.

This consideration played an especially important role because the entire war is a part of the election campaign. Ehud Barak, who gained in the polls in the first days of the war, knew that his ratings would collapse if pictures of dead soldiers filled the TV screens.
Therefore, a new doctrine was applied: to avoid losses among our soldiers by the total destruction of everything in their path. The planners were not only ready to kill 80 Palestinians to save one Israeli soldier, as has happened, but also 800. The avoidance of casualties on our side is the overriding commandment, which is causing record numbers of civilian casualties on the other side.
That means the conscious choice of an especially cruel kind of warfare -- and that has been its Achilles heel.
A person without imagination, like Barak (his election slogan: "Not a Nice Guy, but a Leader") cannot imagine how decent people around the world react to actions like the killing of whole extended families, the destruction of houses over the heads of their inhabitants, the rows of boys and girls in white shrouds ready for burial, the reports about people bleeding to death over days because ambulances are not allowed to reach them, the killing of doctors and medics on their way to save lives, the killing of UN drivers bringing in food. The pictures of the hospitals, with the dead, the dying and the injured lying together on the floor for lack of space, have shocked the world. No argument has any force next to an image of a wounded little girl lying on the floor, twisting with pain and crying out: "Mama! Mama!"

The planners thought that they could stop the world from seeing these images by forcibly preventing press coverage. The Israeli journalists, to their shame, agreed to be satisfied with the reports and photos provided by the Army Spokesman, as if they were authentic news, while they themselves remained miles away from the events. Foreign journalists were not allowed in either, until they protested and were taken for quick tours in selected and supervised groups. But in a modern war, such a sterile manufactured view cannot completely exclude all others -- the cameras are inside the strip, in the middle of the hell, and cannot be controlled. Aljazeera broadcasts the pictures around the clock and reaches every home.

The battle for the TV screen is one of the decisive battles of the war.
Hundreds of millions of Arabs from Mauritania to Iraq, more than a billion Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia see the pictures and are horrified. This has a strong impact on the war. Many of the viewers see the rulers of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority as collaborators with Israel in carrying out these atrocities against their Palestinian brothers.

The security services of the Arab regimes are registering a dangerous ferment among the peoples. Hosny Mubarak, the most exposed Arab leader because of his closing of the Rafah crossing in the face of terrified refugees, started to pressure the decision-makers in Washington, who until that time had blocked all calls for a cease-fire. These began to understand the menace to vital American interests in the Arab world and suddenly changed their attitude -- causing consternation among the complacent Israeli diplomats.

People with moral insanity cannot really understand the motives of normal people and must guess their reactions. "How many divisions has the Pope?" Stalin sneered. "How many divisions have people of conscience?" Ehud Barak may well be asking.

As it turns out, they do have some. Not numerous. Not very quick to react. Not very strong and organized. But at a certain moment, when the atrocities overflow and masses of protesters come together, that can decide a war.

The failure to grasp the nature of Hamas has caused a failure to grasp the predictable results. Not only is Israel unable to win the war, Hamas cannot lose it.

Even if the Israeli army were to succeed in killing every Hamas fighter to the last man, even then Hamas would win. The Hamas fighters would be seen as the paragons of the Arab nation, the heroes of the Palestinian people, models for emulation by every youngster in the Arab world. The West Bank would fall into the hands of Hamas like a ripe fruit, Fatah would drown in a sea of contempt, the Arab regimes would be threatened with collapse.

If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter.

What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet.

In the end, this war is a crime against ourselves too, a crime against the State of Israel.

"The evidence is sitting on the table. There is no avoiding the fact that this was torture."

These are the words of Manfred Nowak, the UN official appointed by the Commission on Human Rights to examine cases of torture. Nowak has concluded that President Obama is legally obligated to prosecute former President George W. Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. here

If President Obama's bankster economic team finishes off what remains of the US economy, Obama, to deflect the public's attention from his own failures and Americans' growing hardships, might fulfill his responsibility to prosecute Bush and Rumsfeld. But for now the interesting question is why did the US military succumb to illegal orders?

In the December 2008 issue of CounterPunch, Alexander Cockburn, in his report on an inglorious chapter in the history of the Harvard Law School, provides the answer. Two brothers, Jonathan and David Lubell, both Harvard law students, were politically active against the Korean War. It was the McCarthy era, and the brothers were subpoenaed. They refused to cooperate on the grounds that the subpoena was a violation of the First Amendment.

Harvard Law School immediately began pressuring the students to cooperate with Congress. The other students ostracized them. Pressures from the Dean and faculty turned into threats. Although the Lubells graduated magna cum laude, they were kept off the Harvard Law Review. Their scholarships were terminated. A majority of the Harvard Law faculty voted for their expulsion (expulsion required a two-thirds vote).

Why did Harvard Law School betray two honor students who stood up for the US Constitution? Cockburn concludes that the Harvard law faculty sacrificed constitutional principle in order not to jeopardize their own self-advancement by displeasing the government (and no doubt donors).

We see such acts of personal cowardice every day. Recently we had the case of Jewish scholar and Israel critic Norman Finkelstein, whose tenure was blocked by the cowardly president of DePaul University, a man afraid to stand up for his own faculty against the Israel Lobby, which successfully imposed on a Catholic university the principle that no critic of Israel can gain academic tenure.

The same calculation of self-interest causes American journalists to serve as shills for Israeli and US government propaganda and the US Congress to endorse Israeli war crimes that the rest of the world condemns.

When US military officers saw that torture was a policy coming down from the top, they knew that doing the right thing would cost them their careers. They trimmed their sails. One who did not was Major General Antonio Taguba. Instead of covering up the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, General Taguba wrote an honest report that terminated his career.

Despite legislation that protects whistleblowers, it is always the whistleblower, not the wrongdoer, who suffers. When it finally became public that the Bush regime was committing felonies under US law by using the NSA to spy on Americans, the Justice (sic) Department went after the whistleblower. Nothing was done about the felonies.

Yet Bush and the Justice (sic) Department continued to assert that "we are a nation of law."

The Bush regime was a lawless regime. This makes it difficult for the Obama regime to be a lawful one. A torture inquiry would lead naturally into a war crimes inquiry. General Taguba said that the Bush regime committed war crimes. President Obama was a war criminal by his third day in office when he ordered illegal cross-border drone attacks on Pakistan that murdered 20 people, including 3 children. The bombing and strafing of homes and villages in Afghanistan by US forces and America's NATO puppets are also war crimes. Obama cannot enforce the law, because he himself has already violated it.

For decades the US government has taken the position that Israel's territorial expansion is not constrained by any international law. The US government is complicit in Israel's war crimes in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

The entire world knows that Israel is guilty of war crimes and that the US government made the crimes possible by providing the weapons and diplomatic support. What Israel and the US did in Lebanon and Gaza is no different from crimes for which Nazis were tried at Nuremberg. Israel understands this, and the Israeli government is currently preparing its defense, which will be led by Israeli Justice (sic) Minister Daniel Friedman. UN war crimes official Richard Falk has compared Israel's massacre of Gazans to the Nazi starvation and massacre of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Amnesty International and the Red Cross have demanded Israel be held accountable for war crimes. Even eight Israeli human rights groups have called for an investigation into Israel's war crimes.

Obama's order to close Guantanamo Prison means very little. Essentially, Obama's order is a public relations event. The tribunal process had already been shut down by US courts and by military lawyers, who refused to prosecute the fabricated cases. The vast majority of the prisoners were hapless individuals captured by Afghan warlords and sold for money to the stupid Americans as "terrorists." Most of the prisoners, people the Bush regime told us were "the most dangerous people alive," have already been released.

Obama's order said nothing about closing the CIA's secret prisons or halting the illegal practice of rendition in which the CIA kidnaps people and sends them to third world countries, such as Egypt, to be tortured.

Obama would have to take risks that opportunistic politicians never take in order for the US to become a nation of law instead of a nation in which the agendas of special interests override the law.

Truth cannot be spoken in America. It cannot be spoken in universities. It cannot be spoken in the media. It cannot be spoken in courts, which is why defendants and defense attorneys have given up on trials and cop pleas to lesser offenses that never occurred.
Truth is never spoken by government. As Jonathan Turley said recently, Washington "is where principles go to die."

Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has held numerous academic appointments. He has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how Americans lost the protection of law, was published by Random House in March, 2008.

Among the many accomplishments of President Obama's first week in office, add this: starting a war of words with the king of conservative talk.

One might have thought Obama would, in the interest of a new bipartisan spirit, want to avoid a confrontation with Rush Limbaugh for as long as possible.

But in a meeting with lawmakers from both parties on Friday, Obama told the GOP representatives, "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done."

Asked about the comment today during his daily briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs smiled as a reporter noted that "he's live on the air."

"Tell him I said, 'Hi,'" Gibbs joked.

But Limbaugh is apparently not in any mood for jokes. On his show, Limbaugh mocked Obama for failing to live up to his promises.

"Now this is the great unifier," Limbaugh said. "This is the man who's going to unify everybody and usher in a new era of bipartisanship and love."

Limbaugh, who is known for his frequent self-promotion, cited Obama's comments as further evidence of his own dominance of the conservative agenda.

"He's obviously more frightened of me than he is Mitch McConnell. He's more frightened of me, then he is of say, John Boehner, which doesn't say much about our party," Limbaugh said on the radio program.